Driving Them Off the Road?

EVERYONE KNOWS DRUNK driving kills, but the real problem--getting people to act responsibly--is difficult to solve.

Groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving have been effective because they make the community conscious that drunk driving is a serious societal problem, not a faux pas. But the killing goes on because irresponsible people mix alcohol and automobiles.

Joe Ryan of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that public education financed by drunk driving fines would be the best way to attack the problem. But any program that would cost a large amount of money, no matter how worthwhile it might be, is unlikely to make it through the 50 statehouses anytime soon.

In the meantime, a number of conclusive studies in Europe and the United States show that, in the long run, stricter punishments for drunk driving don't affect the death rate. Immediately after tough new laws are passed, there is only a temporary dip in the number of drunk driving incidents, the DWI level returning to its previous level within two years.

THE OLD PROBLEMS remain, and new, cheap strategies to change people's attitudes toward drunk driving are necessary until sufficient funds are forthcoming.

One such cheap strategy would be to stamp "Convicted of Driving While Intoxicated" on the driver's license of anyone guilty of DWI. A DWI offender would be stigmatized whenever he writes a check at a local supermarket, or gets carded in a local bar. Nobody wants a gossipy supermarket clerk to know he drove drunk.

Along the same lines, whenever a DWI offender registered a car or had it inspected, the registraton official could check to see that there was stenciled in red on the front doors, "Caution: The owner of this car is a DWI offender." If a crime can't be hidden from the neighbors or the people at work, it is much less likely to be committed.

Still another potentially useful defense against the drunk driving problem is the press. How would potential drunk drivers like to find their names in the Sunday paper under a column that says, "These people endangered you by driving drunk."

These kinds of solutions may seem extreme to some. Branding Americans leaves a bad taste in people's mouths.

Twenty-three thousand Americans died last year in drunk driving accidents.

A GOOD FRIEND of mine was driving drunk late one night and split his car in two. He was thrown 20 feet out the back of his vehicle, landed in some bushes and 10 minutes later walked up to a person surveying the scene and in a stupor asked if there had been an accident.

He still drives drunk. I think he feels that there would be a certain romanticism in dying young, behind the wheel with beer in hand. It certainly would be an appropriate fate.

But my friend is not just an abberation. He embodies values that have been imbued in us all since childhood. Consider light beer, for example. No one would buy low calorie beer until proven tough guys--professional athletes--got on TV and told us to drink it. Why? Because you can drink more of the light stuff in one sitting.

We are a nation that venerates excess. I drank this much, or I drove so fast. In high school, vomiting is a badge of honor.

HE DRANK SO much he puked. So stay out of his way in the locker room, because he has the right stuff.

The Right Stuff. Tom Wolfe named the phenomenon when describing how the nation's best test pilots follow a curious training regimen. Rather than eat right and sleep properly, the fighter jocks stay up all night drinking and rat-racing down desert highways in their sportscars.

The next morning on the flight line, these guardian angels suck in liters of pure oxygen, trying desperately to burn the alcohol out of their system before take-off time. Sure, you might die, but you're living life the way it's got to be lived.

But my friend could have taken someone with him. What if on that night several years ago, he had wrecked the car of the sober driver he collided with and not the other way around.

He'll never admit that it's possible or really even worth thinking about. Going out and drinking and driving are part of his very spirit.

No stigmatization will get him off the bottle or out of the driver's seat. They are for him, and for a sizable portion of our society, the symbols of a way of life. In our safety-conscious society, he's got to dice with death to find redemption.

No giggling grocery clerk would stop him. He tells the story of his accidents and mishaps with a certain pride.

So take him off the road, but don't indulge his vanity with a scarlet letter.